Misconception
Why are we so sensitive to having a complete stranger think badly of us, and why do we have so little control over the emotion?
I just had to queue for twenty minutes to get a ticket to Germany, because the two international ticket queues were so much longer than the twenty domestic ones. So I went to the nearest 'domestic' counter and asked the person behind it if he'd mind opening for international passengers. I've done that twice before and it's been no problem. So he tells me he can sell international tickets, but I can get myself to the back of the international queue, from whom he beckons the woman at the front.
Good for him. Except that I had every intention of beckoning the prior passengers forward, and now this guy thinks I'm just a sneak trying to jump the queue. And I may well never see him again; he makes no difference to my life; and most of all I entirely understand his motive-but still it really really rankles to be sent away like a selfish schoolchild!
Turns out I've got enough time to wait in my own queue, buy my ticket, and still have a few minutes spare. And I see that the international queue's still long, and this guy's sign still says "Domestic", so I wander over and ask in the most exquisitely polite German I can muster (ob ich Ihnen höflich vorschlagen darf...) if he'd consider switching over. And he says, "I can see the queue's long." And that's that.
So I conclude that he's an arsehole, his disdain isn't representative anyway, and I don't have to let it bother me. Common sense.
Yet deep in the pit of my chest, my umbrage continues to smoulder, defying all rationality.
I just had to queue for twenty minutes to get a ticket to Germany, because the two international ticket queues were so much longer than the twenty domestic ones. So I went to the nearest 'domestic' counter and asked the person behind it if he'd mind opening for international passengers. I've done that twice before and it's been no problem. So he tells me he can sell international tickets, but I can get myself to the back of the international queue, from whom he beckons the woman at the front.
Good for him. Except that I had every intention of beckoning the prior passengers forward, and now this guy thinks I'm just a sneak trying to jump the queue. And I may well never see him again; he makes no difference to my life; and most of all I entirely understand his motive-but still it really really rankles to be sent away like a selfish schoolchild!
Turns out I've got enough time to wait in my own queue, buy my ticket, and still have a few minutes spare. And I see that the international queue's still long, and this guy's sign still says "Domestic", so I wander over and ask in the most exquisitely polite German I can muster (ob ich Ihnen höflich vorschlagen darf...) if he'd consider switching over. And he says, "I can see the queue's long." And that's that.
So I conclude that he's an arsehole, his disdain isn't representative anyway, and I don't have to let it bother me. Common sense.
Yet deep in the pit of my chest, my umbrage continues to smoulder, defying all rationality.